


Cogito Ergo Sum

by deltachye



Category: B: The Beginning (Anime)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, One Night Stands, POV Third Person, Psychology, Romance, can be a reader insert if u replace the name and try rlly hard lol, not a great romance but it's A romance, tags r a mess im so sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-03-31 13:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13976187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltachye/pseuds/deltachye
Summary: [x keith flick]And after all, love is merely metaphysical gravity.





	1. DER ANFANG

**Author's Note:**

> [ https://goo.gl/RDzaHi is a chrome ext that replaces names/blanks & you can change ROSALINE HOLT's name if you'd like. ]  
> the show was WILD i honestly think it would have been quite good as an ordinary police drama/crime procedural because the whole thing with like,, supernatural elements was kind of Too Much for me but i wish the show was longer to wrap up better? and I HOPE IT GETS RENEWED FOR S2 BCS I WANT MORE OF THIS UGLY HOBO MAN KEITH

 

❝ _liebe ist kein trost, es ist licht._ ❞

* * *

_[Prologue. They enter.]_

"Hello, Mr. Flick?"

There was no reply and Keith Flick made no move to stop or acknowledge the voice that had called to him. He continued walking, faster even, seeming blissfully unaware of the sound of frantic footsteps on the concrete behind him. It was obvious that he'd be able to easily outwalk a woman wearing heels in this weather. Aware of this and seeing a turn to duck into up ahead, he lengthened his already formidable stride and stuck his hands deeper into his pockets.

"M-Mr. Flick, wait!"

He made no move to wait and kept walking, now, even faster. Perhaps he was driven by the early January chill. But it was more than likely that he merely wanted no acquaintanceship with whichever woman was yelling after him-he never did. Keith squared his shoulders and walked just a bit faster. He was close to escape and climax and _denouement_ ; only a few meters, but then:

"Dr. Ross asked me to talk to you!"

It was a last-ditch effort and he knew it; hell, he'd even expected it. But still, he faltered. One moment was enough. His flat-soled loafers landed poorly on a patch of black ice and his hesitance made his weight shift backwards sharply. The sharp cold registered before the dull ache of pain through his wiry limbs.

"Oh-are you all right, Mr. Flick?!"

"…Just call me _Keith_."

_[Defeat; he falls. Curtain cascade down upon thy desperate hand._

_Despair.]_

He sat up and shook snow off of his sleeve as a woman knelt beside him, shivering in a thin white lab coat. The toes of her black high heels were softly dusted with white powder. Keith had never seen her around-or maybe he had and didn't quite remember her. Most people were unmemorable to him. He already had too many things in his head and didn't feel the need to make room for useless things like humans.

"Sorry for that, Keith," she apologized, holding out a hand. He ignored it and struggled to his feet by clutching onto the wall, swearing under his breath as he swiped wet snow off of his sore behind. The woman continued speaking, even though the air was slowly growing warm between their bodies with Keith's open hostility. "Maybe you didn't hear me."

"I did," he replied bluntly, in the faint hope that his less-than-pleasant attitude would turn her away. Erika wouldn't like that he was acting this way towards women, because she was always nagging him to settle down-

But Erika was gone.

 

_[She dies, alone; exit MURDERER, unseen._

_A cry from within.]_

Right.

The memories fell upon him, one by one, landing upon him heavily with each tender snowflake. The flash of pain across his face was apparently evident and the woman grimaced with him sympathetically.

"Oh… did you fall hard?"

"Look, what do you want from me?" He snapped his arm away from her even though she hadn't come close and clutched it close to his heart.

Keith Flick had always been bad-tempered, but ever since the funeral, he'd closed himself off worse than before. He'd fallen into a rut and it wasn't looking like things were going to get any brighter. Then, it clicked in his head, and he spoke over the woman before she could even begin.

"No, I don't want your help. I don't need a shrink."

She blinked, dark mascara-laden eyelashes fluttering with surprise that he'd predicted what she was going to say before she said it. He had that habit over average people. The fact that she didn't already seem accustomed to that meant that they had definitely not met before.

"Dr. Ross told me he's particularly worried about you," she said, now deciding to choose her words carefully. Her voice was conventionally pleasant to the ears, which made it somewhat more tolerable for Keith to stand his newfound companion. The strained politeness irritated him, though. Polite people were often the only ones with anything truly malicious behind their smiles.

With his new limp, he could not go very fast, and could not lose the tail of this woman. She walked slowly alongside him to match his crippled pace, continually drawing her white coat around herself. Despite the fact that she was clearly cold, she made no move to hurry him anywhere.

"Gilbert's an idiot. Go away."

"He's your friend, isn't he?"

Keith scoffed; it made a frosty, bitter cloud in the frigid air. Finally he slowed to a stop, and leant against the corner of the crumbling collegiate brick walls. She slowed and stopped in front of him, her exhalations bringing swirls of fog up towards him from her shorter figure. It was light, unlike real fog, which weighs more heavily and thickly on the mind than snow.

"Did he order you to hunt me down? See if I'm suicidal or something?" Keith demanded in a taunting manner. The woman shrugged nonchalantly, enough so for her coat hem to shift aside. Keith's eyes darted down to the name-card clipped to the waist of her black pencil-skirt.

"Hm… something like that. I'd love to tell you that you're welcome to approach me at your leisure, but…" She trailed off mysteriously and Keith's heart lurched with annoyance. She didn't continue, staring up at him with wide eyes. He was quick to cave.

"But _what_?" he snapped.

She smiled then, her reddened lips curling upwards as bark does in arid summer. Her face glowed in the pearly white-toned light reflecting off of the snow, and a soft puff from her nose indicated a laugh. Keith only then realized that she had figured him out to clockwork in that one simple moment. In that one moment, she had proven herself to be smarter than _him_.

" _But_ , our session is already being paid for, and you'd be draining something like a hundred and fifty dollars per hour for nothing out of your own wallet. Show up and it gets refunded. Simple, right?"

"What?" Keith repeated, stupidly, for the first time in a long time. Dr. Rosaline L. Holt of the Faculty of Psychology was cryptic with her beautiful, charming grin. It unsettled Keith greatly, and yet he could only stare.

"I will see you in my office later today at 3, Mr. Flick-ah, Keith. Do watch your step as you walk. It gets quite icy."

He could not look away from her footsteps even after she had already long left and they had filled in with new snow.

_[Solus; yet KEITH is not entirely alone.]_

\---

"Are you comfortable?"

The question was answered with little more than a disgruntled glare. Rosaline Holt smiled quietly in return and made a note on her pad, crossing and uncrossing her legs. Keith Flick left his obscenely wide open, tapping his dirty shoes disinterestedly. Slush melted onto the white rug, marring it with dark streaks.

"We'll get started, then."

"Not like I've got much of a choice." Another glare; he had earlier checked into her threat to validate its existence and was only planted in this leather chair right now because there was no convenient way around it. Gilbert had gotten him good by siccing this woman onto his ass. He scoffed and turned his head aside, balancing it on his hand glumly. "Charging a hundred-fifty and hour is ridiculous."

Rosaline dutifully ignored his childish skulking, averting her gaze back down to her notes as her eyelashes fluttered. They danced like gossamer-light wings. She took her time filling out whatever form she was filling out-or maybe she was merely doodling meaninglessly to purposefully make him uncomfortable. His mind raced with the options, as always, his poor consciousness desperately trying to catch up with the expanding multi-worlds born out of constant choice. Keith's foot stilled for a moment as he tentatively stole a glance to check if she was watching him, but she kept on writing. He could not keep from fidgeting for long, and finally spoke up when the silence grew unbearable.

"You know that I've read all of the psychology texts there are, right? You can profile me all you want, but it's useless."

"As futile as it is, an effort is an effort." She replied immediately, meaning that she wasn't distracted by anything at all-and was she smiling again? Was she toying with him again, like she had toyed with his need for answers so skillfully? His teeth ground together painfully. Slowly, he relaxed his jaw and sat up, narrowing his eyes.

"So do you even know what happened to me?" he probed carefully.

"No," she mused, almost disinterestedly. "I don't know what happens to anybody; even if you tell me, I can't be certain that you're telling the truth. It might be what you believe to be real, but I can never know."

"Fantastic. You're a pretentious, philosophical prick." He leant back and let out another deep, all-encompassing sigh. "How long until this hour is over?"

"I suppose you've already understood the meaning of great loss."

The sudden declaration was abrupt, like a flame suddenly coming alight in darkness. 

_[Torches.]_

Keith raised his head, his eyebrows furrowed before he could neutralize his expression. She was looking up now, the pad of paper tucked away on the desk beside her. Her legs crossed and then uncrossed. Keith swallowed thickly.

"Gilbert told you as much," he attempted to rationalize. "You must've been an old friend of his from college or whatever… I bet he asked you to talk to me to repay some sort of favour."

"Hm… something like that."

_Do watch your step as you walk, Keith._

"If you're a psychologist, you're not doing a lot of psycho-analyzing," he muttered, perhaps a bit too defensively.

"I'm not a healer, if that's what you expect of me. You won't walk out of here without that bruise on your leg, or those memories erased."

_"Keith, where's tou-san?"_

_"Dad's not coming home, so stop asking me about him. Just… forget about it for now, okay Erika?_

_Please."_

"I…" Keith shut his mouth before he could say anything further. For a conditioned hermit and a proud misanthropist, he seemed to feel uncomfortably inclined to say things-too many-to Rosaline, a woman that he'd only just met.

"Whatever you say doesn't leave this room," she said encouragingly, uncrossing her legs. "If you'd like to say nothing, we can look at each other blankly for an hour. That's fine." The dry remark rolled off of him, and he kneaded the side of his temple thoughtfully.

"How did you know I lost he-somebody?"

He was sweating now, the scarf around his neck constrictive like a fibrous noose. His head was scattering, as it always did, but this time more choppily; his thoughts kept veering off course and into each other like particles madly dance in discordant time across the cosmos. There was something about her that made him _feel_ like she already knew everything there was to know about him; more than he knew about himself and would ever know. Keith Flick was often never wrong, but something made him feel like he was against her… even if he didn't know if that feeling was right.

"Oh, that? Dr. Ross told me."

Keith slumped in his chair as she finished her anti-climactic sentence. He pressed his fingers into his skin more harshly, as if that might calm the madness. Rosaline's smile was sadder now, and she mirrored him by leaning back into her own chair. He wasn't sure if that was meant to make him easier project his emotional trauma onto her, but he was suddenly tired of thinking. Even a genius like him got sick of the symphony.

"If I asked you to kill yourself, Keith…" She clicked her pen. "Would you?"

Another flame in the dark.

"…that's an abrupt question."

He didn't have much else to say to that; it was a curveball, and he didn't know why she was suddenly opening the conversation with that line. So much for reading those psychology texts. She must have been a strange kind of psychologist to throw around those kinds of triggers so indifferently. No wonder Gilbert Ross had called on this woman to consult with Keith.

"You're going to have to answer that one. Sorry." She didn't sound very sorry and rested her head on her hand, causing some hair to shift. The light from the window streamed in and infused those strands with gold. Keith's eyes rose to the ceiling and he figured there was no harm in humoring her; at the very least, it would be more interesting than having an hour-long staring contest. He wouldn't give her anything about Erika or himself anymore, he promised himself. He'd just try and figure this weird woman out. An experiment; that's all. He knew those, at least.

"No, I wouldn't," he replied.

"Why not?"

"Because I don't know you. There's no point in me pulling that kind of stunt for a stranger."

"But you know yourself, don't you?"

"Well… obviously."

"But do you really know yourself? Can you validate any of your existence?"

Keith's brow furrowed.

"All of your memories are within your own head," Rosaline continued, tapping her ballpoint pen to her forehead. "When you forget them, they no longer exist until you remember them again. When you describe them to others to make it real, we cannot ever be sure if you're telling the authentic truth. So, were they ever real in the first place?"

"Many people can share the same memory."

"Hallucinate the same few chemicals?" she proposed in a manner that sounded very matter-of-fact. She twirled the pen until the tip pointed at her chest. "How can you fathom what's real in my head and what isn't?"

"…this turned away from me very quickly. I thought you were trying to figure out if I was a danger to myself."

She dropped the pen into her lap and smiled that same smile again, a smile that he wasn't sure if he resented or secretly admired.

"Well, you said you wouldn't kill yourself if I asked you to."

"If _you_ asked me to."

"Wouldn't you kill yourself at any whim if you actually wanted to? Or do you just want a specific person to tell you?" She uncrossed her legs and spoke softly; so heartbreakingly soft. It sounded like she was speaking from within his own head than from across the room.

"Keith, you're not a danger to yourself. I think you're just sad."

"You can think whatever you want about me." He uncrossed his own legs, not remembering when the right had gone over the left. He looked away from her again, glancing out the window to the falling snow. "Just tell Gilbert to get off of my back."

"From what I've heard, you've been doing nothing but staying at home. You quit your job and…" A glance to the notepad behind her. "You've stopped writing, as well?"

"So? Being lazy isn't an offence."

"Is it really laziness? Or do you not know what to do with yourself anymore?

Do you think that you don't deserve to be happy?"

"Nevermind-I'm sick of this." Keith got out of his chair, his blood suddenly unbearably hot. The chair legs screeched against the floor, rattling against the sudden force. If he had wanted to hide his true intentions and thoughts, he had failed impressively. Dr. Rosaline Holt's piercing stare was becoming too much; and suddenly he could feel Erika on his arm, as she clung to him as children, the men at the door telling them that suddenly, they were alone in the world. And that all of his genius, all of that talent, all of that praise… was not enough to stop daddy from leaving him behind.

_[Flourish.]_

"Keith-I'm sorry. I went too far."

She'd stood up but didn't move closer to touch him. He hesitated when he saw her hovering like an unsure hummingbird. It'd be easy to leave, yes, but then he'd have to continually face Gilbert Ross' deformed smile, marred with sentiments and worse-pity. Or maybe that was just an excuse to stay. Who knew anything, anymore?

Slowly, he sat down, stiff-backed. She followed afterwards and picked up the legal pad again. Her pen clicked once. Another quick note.

"When do you think Erika died? Since we seem to like jumping right into that kind of talk." He was genuinely curious as to this woman's thought processes, now, like spectators ooh and aah at the clairvoyant's violet tent. He often was good at predicting people's thoughts, but her… 

_[Quiet cries from within.]_

"Your younger sister, I'm assuming?"

Keith didn't make any noise of affirmation, shuffling his feet instead. Rosaline pressed the pen to her bottom lip; he watched as it gently squished the soft, supple skin. He suddenly didn't feel so bothered talking about Erika. He hadn't even said Erika's name aloud since the funeral. The red scribbles on his ceiling at home appeared in his head, and he recited the math to himself. The emotional detachment of the formulas calmed him down.

"I'd peg it to a year."

The guess made Keith's eyebrows arch. Erika had only been dead for something like a month.

"Loss and grief affects everybody differently," Rosaline continued, seeming to notice his expression and making the deduction in her head. "My apologies." He didn't know if she guessed wrong on purpose, but he felt like she knew the real answer.

"You aren't really sorry. You didn't know her."

"No," she said, quietly again, lowering her eyes to the page. "I suppose not."

"Look, I don't know what you're trying to get from me anymore. So let's just get it over with."

Keith was fed up with her vague attitude at this point. The curiosity remained, but he was no longer in the mood for solving puzzles. Some puzzles weren't meant to be solved; some answers were buried too deep.

_"Who killed her, Genie?"_

_"I don't know."_

"I only try to understand." She rolled her shoulder a bit in a pseudo-shrug and it replayed in his head after he saw it. "That's all."

"You can't." It came out sharply, the way he'd told Boris that the old man could not stop him from seeing Erika-what was left of her, at least. Keith shuddered, the cold sensation rolling down his spine in a sharp, slimy wave. "You can't even begin… to understand."

His voice broke against his will and Keith realized with a jolt of horror that his emotions were roiling in his gut again, the way they had when he'd seen the white stitch marks on her forehead. Gilbert had done his best to reconstruct Erika's face and he'd done an exceptional job. She had just looked like she was sleeping. She had looked like she was going to wake up, and grin, the way her face used to light up whenever he got her a present. They'd never been anything special; tiny things that he'd picked up, like a blue bird necklace or a notebook. But yet, she glowed. And yet, nothing could have fixed what was done to her- _his_ little sister, the one that had clung to him and made sure he wasn't alone and relied on him to protect her.

And he hadn't done that.

"It's all right," Rosaline breathed. She had cycled around the room and walked behind him, placing a singular hand upon his shoulder softly. It was ghostly, and although it was detached, he felt real sympathy sweep through the single touch. He figured she stood behind him to give him the dignity of not studying his face as he wept-for that, he was actually appreciative.

"She trusted me," Keith muttered hoarsely as the tears began to choke him out, rolling down his unshaved face hotly. His hands trembled in fists and thin crescents tore into his palms. He hadn't cried since the funeral, and yet it felt like a dam had broken and all his pent-up emotions were rolling out and over him. They drowned him in a riptide; he heard her call his name at her high school graduation, running up to him with that big goofy, stupid grin. "She trusted me and I… I…"

"You couldn't have done anything. You can't, now. The only thing you can do is move on." The hand on his shoulder twitched, a bit, and he imagined her to be wistfully looking out at the window over his shoulder. "It'll hurt less in time."

"You mean when I forget her?!" Keith spat, shoving the comforting hand off of himself and getting to his feet for the second time. He stared at her through the veil of tears, refusing to acknowledge them, as if that would make them disappear. He expected her to watch him and stand there like a spectre, as she had done before, but instead she came forwards. Each corporeal heel click on the floor made his heart stutter in his chest.

"Someday, the pain will no longer be real."

There was something about her. That je ne sais quois, that _familiarity_ , as if atoms from the same star had found each other again and rejoiced in that dance. There was something in the curve of the black sweater that hugged her. Something in the lilt of her voice, something in the threads in her irises, something, something, something he could not fathom or figure out-

_[Aside to KEITH.]_

"It'll be all right soon enough."

It seemed like a joke. All month, people merely avoided him, afraid to tread on his toes regularly and now doubly so after the Erika Flick case had reluctantly closed. Dead Kyle had grinned at him right before biting his tongue off. Her smile seemed to hold the same insanity behind it, but it was the madness in the idea that _everything shall be okay_.

"The hour's up."

He blinked, not having realized how much time had passed since he was looking at her. A fat teardrop finally fell from his chin, but he made no move to wipe his face. Keith watched silently as Rosaline retreated to her chair, picking up her yellow note pad and scribbling something down. She glanced up to Keith when he didn't move from his spot and gave him a dry smirk.

"I'll tell Dr. Ross that you're fine, so you needn't worry. I'm sorry for annoying you like this."

It was almost like nothing had happened at all.

_All of your memories are within your own head. Sharing hallucinations; how can you fathom what's real in my head and what isn't?_

_Were they ever real in the first place?_

"Dr. Holt…"

"Rosaline is fine." She sounded a lot chirpier now that the hour was gone; entirely different.

"Are you real?"

She looked up, her eyes widening a touch as she registered the question. Her pupils twitched as they adjusted to the sunlight streaming in despite the curtain of snow; he watched her lips move as she spoke, unable-or perhaps, too afraid-to meet her eyes.

"I sure hope so."

He sighed out of his nose, putting his hands back into his pockets as she looked up to him from her seat. In this tableau it could almost be taken as a pair of lovers gazing into each other's eyes; perhaps it was God looking down upon His children; perhaps it was a pair of broken, lost star fragments side stepping each other on their journey through time.

"You know what?"

Keith's voice broke the act and he suddenly shed the vulnerability he had just shown. He turned his back in order to hide his face. He didn't leave just yet and continued to speak, walking slowly. As if gravitated, Rosaline stood with him.

"Put this onto Gilbert's account or tab or whatever. Let's do another hour or two; but on the Southside. There's good ramen shops down by the sea."

"I'm sorry-you want to continue the session?" The confusion in her voice pleased him; it made him feel like he had restored the balance of being the smartest person in the room. Things were starting to be 'okay' again; as okay as they'd get.

_"It'll be all right soon enough."_

"I want _lunch_ ," he replied pointedly. Truthfully, he had never been very diligent about his diet, not even as a child. Erika had always been the one to remind him to eat, and her death had done no favours to his health. But he figured he had more than enough time on his hands. He slowed enough to turn and looked behind himself, and saw that she was smiling that ethereal smile again-wryly now, as she shook her head.

"My, Keith Flick. You're an odd man indeed."

"I could say the same about you." He looked to the door and then back to her, scratching the back of his head. "Take your time. If it goes to three hours, that's four-fifty out of Gilbert's pocket."

"I guess time is something we all need." She laughed to herself; a small, stifled laugh that made her hair flutter before her chin. She set the notepad down and then reached for the felt coat that was strewn over her chair, and then joined Keith by his side. She smiled up at him.

"Lead the way, Keith."

In his head, she had extended a hand for him to take, like she had at their first meeting when he was being slowly buried by snow-it was warm, and inviting, and most of all, decisively guiding. God's hand.

A healing hand.

"Fine, but don't blame me if we get lost on the way."

 

_[Exeunt.]_


	2. DIE MITTE

**REM sleep**  
/ˌärˌēˈem ˌslēp/  
 _(Rapid Eye Movement sleep, REMS, paradoxical sleep) is a unique phase of sleep, distinguishable by random/rapid movement of the eyes, accompanied with low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly…_

Keith Flick had never truly dreamt before.

Sure, he _could_ dream. His biochemistry was not abnormal enough to prevent him from it; but his brain rejected them, and he always woke with no memory of the grand adventures he’d seen. It was like a cruel sneer: _is real life not_ good _enough for you?_ At first, he’d thought it strange when the kids on the monkey bars would swing left and right, trading the secret stories in their head in whispers like contraband candies out their pockets. He’d felt left out then, but he was often left out from most things. He was too gifted—too brilliant to bother spending time with those dimwits. Still, it didn’t mean that he didn’t feel pricks of envy that those monkeys seemed to grin without _his_ understanding. 

_They’re being happy without me._

The dream was recurrent now, so vivid that he could still smell sour dust in his nose from the old gravel of an abandoned car lot. It crunched underneath his feet like bone fragments as he watched himself walk along, vaguely detached yet grounded in a dissociative state. Even though he could tell that he had been here before, he couldn’t seem to get past the fogginess in his head and couldn’t predict anything that might happen. He wasn’t thinking at all; merely observing. Watching a film in a theatre for one. That much should have been a give-away that this was not true life. But the dullness throbbed, terrifyingly relaxing, and he was handed over to easy simplicity.

The blood was hot yet cold. Its heat died away to a clammy chill once it kissed the nighttime air. Even the most superficial cuts on the face bleed profusely, and he clamped a handkerchief to his own in an attempt to clear up his vision. It smelt strongly of iron, disgustingly so, but he moved on. There was no pain. There was no pain…

Dead Kyle was starting to wake up, raising his head groggily. He moved slowly at first, fluidly—and then he jerked awake, his entire body seizing and straining against the plastic zip-ties securing him to the fence-gate. A metal chain wrapped around his neck, bolting him in place in the case that he managed to free his limbs. His eyes were wild, like a rabid dog’s, and then he met Keith’s. Recognition spilt across his features. Then, instead of fear or anger, his face split with a gleeful smile. He was missing many teeth and the ones he’d managed to hold onto were rotted and yellow; and yet, those few canines had been enough to sever his tongue, hadn’t they? Keith felt a shiver come down his spine as he watched his captive strain against chains like a wild animal. Now mute, the man couldn’t speak. He could only sit and laugh, cackling in the night as Keith looked down. His laughter was sharp through the haze, high-pitched and rolling, loud and then soft, and utterly… disgusting. 

“Who do you work for?” he asked or heard himself ask muddily.

Laughter.

“Why did you say that you did it?”

Laughter.

Why did this have to happen?

Laughter.

_Why does it have to hurt?_

Laughter.

And it went on. Even when Keith took a knife and made a clean cut at his face, mimicking the gash down the front of his own, _he_ laughed. Even when Keith beat him, spat on him, tried to break him—he laughed. He laughed. _He_ laughed.

Was it him that was laughing? Was it God?

He woke up crying.

**ni·hil·ist**  
/ˈnīələst,ˈnēəlist,ˈnihilist/  
 _A person who believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles…_

“Flick!”

The voice was stiff as starch. He opened his eyes to the blank ceiling, the world blurry without his glasses. He was a slave bound by myopia, too many days spent spellbound by books and computers. For an uncertain moment, Keith wondered where he was. He almost said it aloud: _‘where am I?’_ , but then thought better of it. He remembered soon enough.

Prison has a chill about it that can’t be mistaken for anything else.

Somebody was unlocking the door to his miniature cell. Keith couldn’t tell any of the guards apart—they were always the same. Flat, authoritative, rough. Uncaring, really. He reached up and fondled the rough patch of gauze on his face as he brushed aside the last of the tears. The laceration had closed fine, but the doctors insisted on burdening him with bandages to prevent ‘infection’. He knew it was just a glorified high-vis marker to flag him as insane. ‘Infection of the mind’. But Keith was not insane. Rather, he was the sanest one of everybody here. He was the only who really understood why Nietzsche was right. 

He was the only one burdened with that.

“Visitor,” the faceless guard said emotionlessly, grabbing the back of Keith’s collar like a lioness might pluck up a misbehaved cub. Keith shoved the glasses he’d clipped onto his front onto his face, peering out into the room blearily. He couldn’t think of anybody that would want to visit him right now. Eric? No… his ego was too bruised. Poor Eric wouldn’t be coming by until he’d finished with his temper tantrum, probably. Gilbert? No. Keith didn’t think Gilbert cared enough, despite whatever old Gil had to say about their friendship. Traversing to such a _dirty_ place like prison was not well-suited for a man like that. 

Keith blinked and _Dr. Rosaline Holt_ blinked back. When he tilted his head, she tilted hers, a foggy mirror. She smiled in a grimacing sort of way, but the pull of her peony-pink lips made him jerk forwards as if hooked unsuspectingly.

“Let’s go on ahead to my office, then. Keith.”

Her voice was soft and welcoming, but not without a Schrödinger’s cat of deceit. She looked just the same as she did in his memories. Half of her fair hair was wound back in a loose clip, but each wayward strand took on light of its own as if they were each a tiny bundle of gold. Her eyes were a tentative shade between blue and grey, like a sky that had yet to decide on itself. She wore a clean, plain outfit under her white coat that hugged the body well but demanded attention to be diverted to the face. And the face was just the same, full of unlocked mysteries and coaxed insecurity from the onlooker. Although nothing was being explained to him, Keith didn’t feel that he had a choice in the matter. Though it wasn’t like he would say no, anyways. Dead Kyle’s ghostly blood was still warm on his face and he winced.

“Fine.”

They shuffled together—her heels clacked on the floor and his state-issued boots dragged behind in time.

**ca·thar·sis**  
/kəˈTHärsəs/  
 _The process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions…_

“Your office is in prison, now?”

The guard ignored Keith while she undid his handcuffs. He rubbed his sore wrists together once freed. The guard glanced back to Rosaline with a reluctant frown, as if questioning Rosaline’s own mental health for wanting to be cooped up alone with a crazy man. But Rosaline waved her out insistently, murmuring quiet thanks under her breath. 

“Yes,” she answered once the heavy door slammed shut. She quirked up another tiny smile that he couldn’t quite gauge the realness of. “It’s quite the downgrade from being a college professor, isn’t it?”

Keith could only sniffle out a small noise of agreement. Rosaline’s office didn’t _appear_ as prison-like as he’d expected. There was a window, though the thick wire meshing on it was oppressive enough that there should have just been bars outright. The light was dim, as if sucked away, despite the best efforts of the stately fluorescent bulbs above. The room was claustrophobically small, forcing a closeness that didn’t exactly seem safe. It wasn’t at all like the pretentious, prim-and-proper office she had invited him to before. It was raw.

He hadn’t expected to see this woman again at all. She’d said it herself: why give up a cushy office job just to hang around a dirty penitentiary? Had she been fired? He could imagine her less-than-conventional therapy would draw concern from an old white man sitting on the board. Or, maybe she had just been bored with regular sad people and wanted to peek around the curtain to the _real_ cranks of the land. In any case, Keith hadn’t imagined that he would be face to face with Rosaline again. It wasn’t like he would approach her first, despite the fact that he had nurtured the idea once. He wasn’t often wrong about anything, so having her cross his legs in front of him seemed like a surreal experience. He paused for a moment to wonder if he was glad to see her—and he couldn’t say that he wasn’t. She didn’t qualify as a ‘friendly face’, though. She was just… something different. A clover flower in a sere field. A fragile, waterlogged peony amongst thorny roses.

There was an awkward silence between them for a while, but Keith was determined to keep his mouth shut this time. Rosaline had gotten far too much out of him at their last encounter. If this were a game, he wanted a couple rounds to himself. It was much easier this time around to keep his silence. He’d done a lot of that ever since being arrested, and he was tired. It allowed him to bite down his characteristically snarky remarks. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why you’re here?” 

She caved first, as expected. Her tone was very matter-of-fact. Keith could only muster an apathetic shrug in response. The scar on his face was starting to ache ever since he’d been jostled around, but he resisted the urge to touch and check if it were bleeding.

“I don’t really care why. It’s a welcome change of scenery.”

He kept his eyes low but heard her laugh a touch. It wasn’t humoured, but a laugh all the same.

“Well, I’ll tell you anyways. I’m doing your psych eval. Once you’re cleared, you’ll be able to leave on bail.”

“I don’t have that kind of money lying around,” Keith sneered dryly, more to himself than to her. He closed and opened his fist, watching it tremble in his lap. It wasn’t like he had any family waiting for him at an empty dinner table, eager for him to come home. 

“Dr. Ross does, actually. He called in a favour to have me bump you in the list.”

“How many favours do you owe this man?” Keith looked up sharply to meet her face. It was Gilbert’s stifling _concern_ that had brought him to her the first time, and Keith had never been blind to spotting patterns in life. He narrowed his eyes. Rosaline wasn’t that much younger or older than him, assuming she looked her age—could Gilbert have picked up a _pet_? The thought suddenly made him both horrified and angry and he winced, unable to help himself from pressing down on his gauze bandaging.

“I thought you’d be more appreciative,” she said quietly, almost as a humming thought to herself rather than a real question to him. It felt patronizing. Suddenly, Keith wanted to ask her to ask him how it felt to torture Dead Kyle under his fist. He wanted her to know just how dark he could be—just how evil he could get when he wanted to—and that she shouldn’t just go around owing favours and smiling at people like that. He wanted to see a peony shrivel. Throw it to the salt-laden wind. He wanted to lift the curtain and start the show. 

But instead, he kept his mouth shut. No… he shouldn’t. He could. But instead he worked his jaw for a moment and then scoffed, turning his head away.

“Get on with it then. Call me crazy or sane or whatever it is Gilbert _wants_ you to say.” The whip-crack of derision sounded more like teenage jealousy than anything, even to him, and he stifled the urge to cringe at himself. So much for subtlety. 

“…you know, I think you were just doing the right thing.”

_“Keith, you're not a danger to yourself. I think you're just sad.”_

He looked up slowly and saw Rosaline balancing her head in her palm, squishing her features almost like a child would as she looked off thoughtfully. He watched her eyes gravitate to his like a ball begs to roll down a slope—slowly, painfully slowly, and then with desperate momentum. 

“I didn’t think a psych eval included personal bias,” he mused, interested in why she had felt the need to say that to him. He didn’t actually care whether or not people thought he was right to do it. He hadn’t ever cared what people thought of his actions—people had said that was abrasive of him, but what right did they have to tread in stride with him? It definitely hadn’t been legal, what he did—and although it was hard to admit, his personal vengeance on Dead Kyle had really led to nowhere. But he was less angry now, if that counted for anything at all. He felt it seep out of him, leaving him exhausted—but content, at least. 

“Well. Maybe I’m just like you, then.” She rubbed her eyes tiredly, and Keith finally noticed through his crooked lenses that she looked _exhausted_. It wasn’t even that long ago that he’d first met her on that snowy day. It still snowed outside. It only felt like an infinity ago. She sat hunched, no longer proud, as if there was a weight slowly grinding her into the ground. There was a gauntness behind her eyes that was no longer obscured by an intelligent gleam. She was wilting.

She looked just like he did.

“Is something wrong?” he found himself asking before he could really judge if it was appropriate or not to say. She glanced up, clearly surprised by the concern.

“I… I dunno. Maybe. Just… don’t you ever feel that everything’s slowly crumbling away? In a way that makes you wish it’d all go to shit _faster_ so that you can go on and be done with it, but…” She trailed off before shaking her head limply. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t complain after what you’ve been through.”

“Everybody handles things differently,” he dismissed, intrigued by her sudden admission of weakness. In the end, he did not know Rosaline well. He’d cried in front of her. They’d shared a meal together. And then they parted ways after that. Although their encounter weighed heavily on the mind, he hadn’t ever truly entertained the thought that they’d meet again. And yet here they were, and Rosaline was the one headed to a red-dyed west rather than him. He was the one locked up for torturing a man, and yet he felt that he truly pitied her.

She pursed her lips in mental rejection. Keith added on, slowly and carefully. 

“Isn’t that what you meant last time? After all… I can’t know what’s happening

in your head.”

She froze underneath his touch. Her scalp was warm and his fingers felt like they might melt into her impossibly soft hair. Cautiously, she glanced up at him, causing his hand to slip and rest against the back of her head. He cradled her skull. 

There was something about her. Something about him. Ever since he’d attacked Dead Kyle, Keith had felt like he was merely floating through life, his purpose completed. He still didn’t know who killed Erika. But he’d made a liar pay, and Dead Kyle no longer laughed any more—so in a way, he felt okay. But floating does things to you. The sense of detachment was familiar, fine… he often got that way whenever he needed to concentrate. But the senselessness, the feeling of floating in the endless blue ocean and staring up at the endless blue sky, the feeling of _need_ , need for something different, a tide, a breeze, a cloud, a petal to start a ripple—

Rosaline made him feel grounded. 

Touching her made spurs of electricity jolt up and down his arm, quicken his heart—oh, how fearful humans are of thunder and lightning when sparks light up the brain. The brain that holds you. Somewhere inside of him he knew it was wrong of him to want her this badly. He knew, and yet, people run to what hurts them. 

“Keith?” she whispered hoarsely, a warning shot in the dark. But she didn’t move. He didn’t move. He was no longer angry, or sad. He was just okay. Floating on…

But Rosaline was _something_.

_Drip-drip-drip._

He always knew what was happening. What had happened. What will happen. What was ‘going on’. He’d always been the smartest person in the room—but sometimes the monkeys play tricks on the master, and they’d whisper on the playground without him. They’d conspire with glee and he’d just have to go and float away. He floated for a long while.

_Drip-drip._

Rosaline raised her hand and then placed it over his, sharing her warmth with him. The palm was soft, and the back of her knuckle had a small ink mark along it. Her hand was so much smaller than his. His heart was fluttering anxiously within his chest, blood rising hotly to the skin. He was still a man, after all—it wasn’t as if he went without these kinds of affections because he didn’t need them. Humans are needy bastards.

She stood abruptly and walked him to her desk. Her hands gripped the sides of his hips possessively. He was much taller than her and even when he was sat down onto the hard wood, knocking aside a stapler in the rough process, he could look down into her eyes. There was something frightfully intimate yet detached in the way she touched him, her hands only just barely grazing him, yet delving into his soul. Each shiver brought his body closer to hers as if they truly yearned for each other. Clothes; there was no need to bother. It was dirty, this desperation. Macbeth’s hands dye water. _Drip._ His hands trembled against the hot small cradle of her back. Her breasts were soft against his chest. Her thighs were soft. Her lips were soft. Wet. Enrapturing. Whole. _Wet_. There was the taste of rose on the roof of his mouth. Lewd whimpers got caught in the vertex of legs like dug-up gold to be hidden away. He saw himself standing on a crumbling dike, watching impatient waves pound and pound and gyrate and thrust, demanding a flood. Napoleon demanded victories. He was totally naked in a tangle like kelp drifting by in the endless blue ocean. It winds around your neck like braided rope, sweet in its slow-motion dance under the green water. He had always been afraid of drowning. He lost himself in her. Words—words could not come to him. His mind stumbled over a beach of words and he picked them up like stones, tossing them around the inside of his head, but none of them fell into his mouth. The sea spray on his face was cool and warm, like blood. She was warm. And then it was cool again, the way ocean wind roars through your hair in the blackest of night.

_“Nobody has to know.”_

Nobody did. Not even when he was herded back to his cell, a secret floral tattoo of pink-purple peonies trailed down his neck. Not even once he left the prison, looking up and back and seeing Dr. Rosaline Holt watch him go from her office window. The last time he left her he didn’t think he’d see her again; yet now, knowing that the touch of her supple skin under his palm felt like flower petals… he felt that he might not actually know a damn thing at all.

**Le·bens·wil·le**  
/le:bənsvɪlə/   
_German: the will to live._

**Author's Note:**

> read this elsewhere: https://goo.gl/VUieKz


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